


The End of All Things

by multifannish



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:18:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multifannish/pseuds/multifannish
Summary: DISCLAIMER: This is me having too much time on my hands and too active a fantasy. It's purely fictional and I do not want to imply that Brendon and Ryan had something going at one point or another. It's for them to confirm or deny what did or did not happen. This story does not reflect my view of their actual, real lives and I'm fully aware that me posting this story makes my stance of generally not shipping irl people hypocritical.I don't have an excuse for doing it regardless, I indulged in a fantasy and I know that others enjoy it, so I'm posting it for entertainment purposes.Less (or more) importantly: This fic doesn't include Sarah because I feel bad enough making up stuff about Brendon falling for Ryan as if he's not very happily married to a wonderful woman in real life. I didn't want to include anything like them breaking up just for the sake of my made-up fantasy, so I decided that I'd just leave her out - admittedly not the most elegant solution, nor does it mean I'm implying that had it not been for her, Brendon would have ended up with Ryan for sure. It's simply the best I can do to make this story work without having to include a breakup of their marriage, which I really do not want to do.Also, some things in this fic aren't super accurate in terms of when or how exactly certain stuff happened. Just roll with it, I did some research to confirm some points but I couldn't be bothered to do that for every single thing since, again - this isn't reflective of reality.Mostly this is about the fact that this is set in 2016 but I couldn't bring myself to take out the Infinity War joke even though that only came out in 2018.....





	The End of All Things

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMER: This is me having too much time on my hands and too active a fantasy. It's purely fictional and I do not want to imply that Brendon and Ryan had something going at one point or another. It's for them to confirm or deny what did or did not happen. This story does not reflect my view of their actual, real lives and I'm fully aware that me posting this story makes my stance of generally not shipping irl people hypocritical.
> 
> I don't have an excuse for doing it regardless, I indulged in a fantasy and I know that others enjoy it, so I'm posting it for entertainment purposes.
> 
>  
> 
> Less (or more) importantly: This fic doesn't include Sarah because I feel bad enough making up stuff about Brendon falling for Ryan as if he's not very happily married to a wonderful woman in real life. I didn't want to include anything like them breaking up just for the sake of my made-up fantasy, so I decided that I'd just leave her out - admittedly not the most elegant solution, nor does it mean I'm implying that had it not been for her, Brendon would have ended up with Ryan for sure. It's simply the best I can do to make this story work without having to include a breakup of their marriage, which I really do not want to do.
> 
> Also, some things in this fic aren't super accurate in terms of when or how exactly certain stuff happened. Just roll with it, I did some research to confirm some points but I couldn't be bothered to do that for every single thing since, again - this isn't reflective of reality.  
> Mostly this is about the fact that this is set in 2016 but I couldn't bring myself to take out the Infinity War joke even though that only came out in 2018.....

_Whether near or far_  
_I am always yours_  
_Any change in time_  
_We are young again_

_Lay us down_  
_We’re in love_  
_Lay us down_  
_We’re in love_

 

Brendon frowned when his phone started buzzing at 2am. These days, he wasn’t usually up this late and most people would know that, but he’d gotten carried away with this series and then it gave him an idea for a song and, well, sometimes these things just _happened_. Still didn’t explain the ridiculous time to call him.

He stretched his arm out, stopping the guitar from falling from his lap with the other and grabbed his phone. Unknown number. What on earth? Maybe it was an emergency, he thought. He didn’t have any numbers memorized and God knew that would probably come back and fuck him over at some point, but it didn’t mean none of his friends couldn’t have memorized his to call him from a phone other than their own. Right?

He sighed and slid to answer. “It’s 2am. I sure hope you’ve got an emergency. Who is it?”

For a second, he just heard a shaky breath and concern began to rise up in him. Up until now he hadn’t taken this particularly seriously, but that didn’t sound good. 

“Hey,” he repeated, gentler this time, “Who is it? Everything okay? Did something happen?”

“Brendon?”

The voice sounded frantic, almost panicked and like the caller’s entire state of mind could be best described as “fuck” right now. Brendon set the guitar down.

“Yeah. Who is it?”

“I don’t know,” the voice replied from the other end, sounding even more unsettled now. “I had your number on a piece of paper in my pocket when I woke up. I didn’t know what to do, I just called.”

Brendon blinked. “What do you mean, you don’t know. You don’t know who you are?”

“I don’t!” the voice sounded like it was being choked almost into silence by tears. “Yours was the only number I had on me, so I bummed some people at this all-night place for money for the payphone.”

Brendon tried to remember when he had last written down his number to give to anyone. He hadn’t done that in forever, except when…

“Okay if you don’t know who you are, can you describe to me what you look like? Maybe I can fill you in.”

He really should just be asking for a location and send over 911 or something of the kind, shouldn’t he? 

“Uh, sure, I-I’ve got black pants on and I think my shirt is grey? It’s pretty dark out here, I can’t really tell. I know my jacket is red and I think it has some flowers on it. It had your number in the pocket. I know my hair is brown.”

It couldn’t be…

“Did that piece of paper have anything else on it? What does it look like?”

“Uh…” the voice sounded a little calmer, now that there was something to focus on. Brendon could hear some rustling. 

“Some sort of a logo? And blue – I think they’re blue squares. But they’re not connected like on normal graph paper? Someone scribbled a pen on it that didn’t work at first.”

Brendon’s heart skipped a beat. “Ryan?”

For a moment, there was dead silence. “I- I think that’s my name. I think I remember being called that? Oh shit, I’m running out of money, please, I don’t know what to do, I – “

“Okay. Calm down, tell me where you are or describe as much as you can if you don’t know. I’ll come get you.”

Ryan – if that was Ryan, but it couldn’t be anyone else if all he’d said was true – gave him the name of the street as Brendon was already grabbing a jacket and his keys.

“Okay. Stay right where you are. I’ll be there in a minute. Green jacket, brown hair, sweatpants.”

“Okay, but – “

The line disconnected and Brendon rushed out the door. 

 

Thanks to the mostly empty streets, it didn’t take him long to get there. When he got out the car, he saw the barely illuminated payphone booth with a figure huddled inside. He stepped closer. No doubt, that actually was Ryan, but he looked awful. 

When Brendon’s shadow fell over him, he flinched and stared up at him like a deer in headlights, but then he began to clamber to his feet. “Brendon?”

“That’s what they call me. Man you look like shit. You’ve got puke on your shirt, you know?”

Ryan looked down and grimaced. “I didn’t notice.”

“Well, it smells pretty fucking gross. What the hell happened, Ross?”

Ryan stared at him, some kind of bewildered despair written all across his face. “I don’t know!”, he said, sounding like he was going to cry. “I barely remember anything. I know who I am now, thank you by the way, and I know I’ve seen you before, but I don’t know where or when.”

“Well, last time you saw me was in costume, so I don’t know if it’s that you remember, but that’s when I gave you my number anyway. That was like three months ago by the way, you could’ve called like you said you would instead of waiting until you’ve got fucking amnesia.”

He added a lopsided smile to that to make it clear that he didn’t really mean it like that. Not right now, anyway. The way Ryan looked at him reminded him of the way he’d looked when they had first started to have some notable success with Panic! – all wide-eyed and scared. And yet, like then, there was a strange affection for the very thing that scared him so much. Back then, the crowd. Now, him. Brendon could only assume he was glad to have found someone who knew who he was supposed to be when he didn’t know it himself. 

Ryan reluctantly stepped closer. “I… uh. Do you happen to know where I live?”

As he turned his head to look away, as if he was ashamed of not remembering literally anything at all, Brendon saw how strangely his hair was sticking off the back of his head and he sincerely doubted that Ryan was just bringing back the emo. 

“Hey, turn your head again. What happened to – “

He stopped. That was in fact dried blood if he’d ever seen any. He couldn’t make out the wound, which probably, hopefully, meant it wasn’t actively bleeding anymore, but that was still concerning to say the least. He took Ryan by the arm with a bit too much force to really be gentle. 

“Come on, I’m driving you to the emergency room before we do anything else. They should check out that brain malfunction.”

“Can’t we wait until tomorrow? Maybe it’ll all come back in the meantime.”

“Ryan, I don’t want to alarm you but there’s blood all over the back of your head. – No, don’t touch it, it might get infected!”

Ryan looked somewhat panicked now and Brendon just nodded towards his car. “Come on. I’ll get you to the hospital and make sure you stay awake on the way. Awake means alive.”

He steered Ryan over to his car, manoeuvred him into the passenger’s seat and drove off towards the emergency room, making sure to keep talking to Ryan on the way. He didn’t think it was all that life threatening, really, but he was no doctor and, like he’d said – awake meant alive. 

He hadn’t been surprised when Ryan hadn’t called after the Halloween party. They had exchanged numbers and to be fair, Brendon had only sent him a single text that just said _well, hi_ and that was that. But he _had_ reached out, he had done his part and Ryan had failed to do his. He wanted to be mad over that, and he was, but this helpless being in the shape of Ryan Ross that was in his car right now and that had no idea of their actual, distant relationship was not the Ryan whom he was really mad at. This Ryan reminded him so much of the boy he had known, and he didn’t know why. It wasn’t like Ryan had been helpless or scared all the time then. Maybe it was his urge to protect him. He’d had _that_ back then. And God knew that, confused and lost as he was right now, he could probably use some protection. 

Brendon sighed to himself. Here he was, playing the mother hen. 

They pulled into the hospital parking lot and Ryan looked very pale now, but he was still awake and carefully making sure to keep his head away from the headrest to not get blood on it. Considering that he probably wouldn’t mind just passing out right now just so he wouldn’t have to deal with this anymore, that was actually kind of endearing. 

The car stilled and Ryan nervously looked over to the hospital building. Brendon gently nudged his shoulder. “Hey. You alright?”

“I don’t feel so good.”

Brendon held back from making an ill-advised Infinity War joke. “They’ll get you fixed up and then we can see how to get your brain back to work so you can go back to your own life.”

Ryan frowned and looked like he wanted to ask something, but Brendon was already getting out of the car, so he followed his example. They slowly walked over to the illuminated entrance and, after a bit of explaining the situation, found themselves sitting in a sterile waiting area that smelled of disinfectant. Ryan stared down at his feet. 

“How do we know each other?” he asked quietly. Brendon tore his eyes away from the only other person in the room, a middle-aged woman sleeping on two of the seats opposite of theirs and looked at Ryan. “We were friends,” he replied. “Very good friends.”

“Were?”

“Well, we’ve… drifted apart, let’s put it that way.”

“We had a fight, didn’t we? I remember having a really bad fight with someone, but it feels like a faraway memory.”

“It was about music, originally. Then it got personal and then you left,” Brendon said. Ryan looked up at him, eyes big and tired and sad. “I left? Did we just never talk about it again?”

Brendon shook his head. “Not to an extend that would have changed anything. We fought a lot, then, and I guess you didn’t see any point in trying to make up for nothing any more. Neither did I.”

Ryan lowered his gaze again. “Oh. I didn’t think you and that fight were connected. What I do remember about you is all just good stuff.”

Brendon didn’t answer. It’ll come back to you soon enough, he thought, while he drifted into the memory of those days. Looking back, he had no idea how they’d held it together for that long, and how the other guys had put up with it. They’d spent weeks, months in a perpetual state of love, hate, heartbreak. Brendon remembered fighting, making up, then going through the same arguments over and over, each time getting more frustrated and heartbroken that Ryan wouldn’t just yield, at least a tiny bit. Whenever the arguments repeated, they already knew where it was going to end until Ryan snapped and made it personal, throwing every last thing he could think of at Brendon, or so it felt like, before he turned on his heel and walked away to never return.

All these years later, Brendon still felt his chest tighten when he thought of the slamming of that door. He’d known that’s what would happen from the second their argument had stopped being about the music and started being about them. He could still hear their words ringing in his ears.

 

_There is simply nothing worse than knowing how it ends_  
_And I meant everything I said that night_  
_I will come back to life…_

 

He sighed in frustration. He had _not_ come back to life from that low _only for him._ He’d done it for himself, despite everything. 

But he _had_ meant everything he’d said that night. Everything. The good, the bad and the dirty. Jesus, was he only able to think in songs right now?

A nurse came in and called for Ryan to come over. Ryan got up and, after hesitating for a moment, looked nervously back at Brendon. “Are you coming, too?”

A part of him wished he could just leave Ryan in the care of the hospital staff, but another part was worried, too. And it wasn’t like there was just a miracle cure for amnesia. Ryan would need help if his memories didn’t resurface soon – hell, he didn’t even know where he lived. 

Brendon pushed himself off the uncomfortable plastic chair and gave Ryan a smile that he hoped was more encouraging than it was tired. “I’m right behind you.”

He could practically feel Ryan’s anxiety levels drop. Oh boy, this was going to be something. 

A quick look at his phone told him it was now almost 3.30am and he could begin to feel the lack of sleep. Well, he set his own hours at the moment for most of the time, but he still had things to do. He’d have to walk the dogs at some point in the morning… didn’t Ryan have a dog? Dollie? Dottie? Oh man, Ryan had better remember his address real soon!

When they were ushered into one of the rooms filled with medical utensils, he saw Ryan shudder a little and patted him on the shoulder. Just one quick, gentle touch. “Come on, be a brave boy now,” he said when the nurse left, saying he’d be getting the doctor.

“I’m fine, just – I just realized this is really far from ideal.”

“Hey, we'll deal. Can’t do anything about it now. And it could be one hell of a lot worse, too. At least you’re getting that head looked at.”

Ryan smiled a little. “Yeah. I’m really glad I had your number. Sorry for only calling you now that I was in trouble. You’ve probably got better things to do than help some guy you’re not even friends with anymore.”

That sounded sad. Brendon just shook his head a bit. “It’s alright, Ryan. I’d much rather you call me than stumble about in the street in your state.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said with fierce honesty in his eyes that showed just how sincerely he meant that. Brendon just nodded when the nurse came back in with the doctor trailing behind, who introduced herself as Doctor Williams. She looked tired, but she smiled at them and, after one look at Ryan’s head, sent the nurse off to fetch a bunch of utensils.

“I can already tell you that it’s not a very deep wound,” she said with a gentle, friendly voice as she carefully pushed bloodied strands of hair out of the way. “But head wounds tend to gush blood like the end of the world depending on what and where they are, so it looked a lot worse than it is. I’ll still have to cut some of your hair away so I can clean it out properly, but you won’t even need stitches.”

She got to work, chatting away as she did, and Brendon could tell that her calm behaviour made a world of a difference in this hospital setting that amplified every worrying thought Ryan might have had in the first place. It calmed himself down, too. He hadn’t even noticed how tense he’d really been. 

“This is going to feel a little painful, but it’s just to disinfect – almost done – perfect. It seems nothing really got into the wound to complicate the healing process, either. Now I’ll just close it up. Like I said, no stitches, just a butterfly bandage, don’t worry.”

 

_Fell out of bed, butterfly bandage_  
_But don’t worry_  
_You’ll never remember, your head is far too blurry_

 

Brendon shook his head. Shut up, Patrick, he thought. Don’t need another song in my sleep-deprived brain that’s replacing my actual ability to think.

She finished with the wound and went to disinfect her hands. “Here, you look like you’ve been keeping from touching your head all night,” she said with a friendly grin and squirted some disinfectant into Ryan’s hands as well. He gave her a crooked smile in return and gingerly touched his head, feeling for the small patch of missing hair.

“Thanks,” he said sheepishly. “I was expecting you to tell me not to touch it.”

The doctor laughed. “Well, ideally not, but most people like to know what’s going on when they can’t see their wounds and I’d rather make sure they do it with hands that are as clean as possible!”

Then she picked up the clipboard that held their initial statements as to why they had come to the emergency room in the first place, and her expression turned serious. “I can’t tell for sure what happened to your head, but I’d say it was probably a bottle of some kind – however not a beer bottle, those aren’t usually sturdy enough for the kind of blunt force trauma needed to make someone pass out. In case you’re planning to file a report, the weapon to look for would likely be something akin to a wine bottle. Your head is basically just a bit of a swollen bruise right now, but like the wound, it’s not too big of an issue and should heal just fine on its own.”

She flipped through the pages and nodded. “So, we’re dealing with retrograde amnesia here, right? You said you’re missing memories from before your injury. Have you had any memory trouble with events that came after?”

Ryan shook his head slowly. “No. I remember everything from after I woke up just fine, but there’s almost nothing when I try to remember… well, anything really. It’s just all gone.”

He stared at nothing in particular, looking sad and defeated as he said it. Doctor Williams nodded, looking over the file once more. 

“Will I get my memory back? I mean – is it likely, considering the injury?” Ryan asked after a long pause.

Doctor Williams shook her head apologetically. “It really is very different on a case-by-case-basis. It might all come back after some sleep, or by actively seeking out things that are tied to strong past memories – thankfully you appear to have someone with you who can probably think of one or two things that would fit that description, so that route should be one of the most obvious ones to try first.”

Brendon’s heart sank a little. Oh yeah, _he_ was the right guy to be there when Ryan remembered a bunch of things. Great call, Doc. 

“But there is no sure-fire way, unfortunately,” she continued. “It differs too greatly from case to case for me to be able to give you a blueprint of what steps to take. What I will say however, is that it always helps to surround yourself with potential memory triggers of absolutely any kind. And don’t lose hope if it’s not merely a matter of days – some cases took several years until their memory suddenly got unlocked again.”

She smiled warmly when she saw Ryan’s slightly despairing expression. “I assure you though, the percentage of those who eventually remember everything is much, much higher than that of the ones who don’t. And oftentimes, you will regain some at a time rather than everything all at once. If you have any small success to speak of, however little, the chances are very good that you will be good as new in a few months tops, save for maybe one or two details.”

Ryan looked relieved. “Hey, I remembered some stuff already!” he said, smiling at Brendon. “I remembered you! And my name, but you told me that, so I don’t know if it counts.”

“Well, it certainly is enough for me to say that I’m sure these are not the only things you’ll get back in the near future,” Doctor Williams said with another one of her bright smiles. “If I can give you one last bit of advice before I let you take your leave is that it is tremendously helpful for many amnesia patients to not be left alone for a while. Not because you’ve forgotten how to take care of yourself, rather because a period of no notable success can lead to a kind of temporary depression which may halt the regaining of memories, or at least increase difficulty. Quite a few also reported that waves of memory gain were at times overwhelming, so moral support is always a great thing to have.”

Brendon felt himself get more uncomfortable with every word she said. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help Ryan, he absolutely did. But this sounded like a lot more involvement than he’d planned on. Maybe he could reach out to Z or even Spencer – last he’d heard the two of them still kept somewhat regular contact. They would be much better fitted for that job anyways. 

“Well, I think that’s almost all you need to know. You should be fine to shower with the bandage on, but I’ll have you take some back with you to switch it out every other day, and make sure to stick it on so the wound is fully closed and can grow back together. And I’m guessing you’ll want a shower when you get home to get the blood out, but if it’s not absolutely necessary, avoid shampoo at least for today and afterwards just be careful and if it’s more than just a little uncomfortable, leave it and come in for a check-up. Otherwise that shouldn’t be necessary, the wound will be just fine. Any questions before I let you go?”

They both shook their heads. “Thank you,” Ryan said and then with a little smile, added: “I don’t remember ever meeting such a friendly doctor.”

Doctor Williams laughed as she handed him a pack of butterfly bandages to use as needed and Brendon couldn’t help but grin, too. At least the guy’s spirits appeared to be lifting. 

“Well,” he said to the woman, “I don’t have amnesia and I can only agree. Especially at an hour this late, it makes all the difference.”

“Thank you,” she replied with another smile, already heading towards the door. “You’re lucky, tonight is pretty calm. I’ll let the front know you’re done and free to go so they don’t think you’re trying to sneak out. Good night!”

And with that, she was gone and Brendon and Ryan made their way back towards the entrance, out the door and to Brendon’s car. Once they’d reached it, Ryan hesitated. Brendon shot him a look. “Come on, get in there. Don’t even ask, I’m not letting you spend the night by yourself. Besides, I don’t know where exactly you live, so we’ll have to figure that out tomorrow.”

“Thank you, Brendon,” Ryan said quietly as he slipped back into the passenger’s seat. “I’m sorry. You look really tired.”

“I’ve been up for a while,” Brendon said, but he smiled. Ryan hadn’t done this on purpose, after all, and no matter what – he was still Ryan. And Brendon couldn’t help but give in to the familiar, old urge of protecting Ryan when he was in over his head and needed someone to take the wheel.

“You okay to drive?” Ryan asked when he was already starting up the car. Brendon laughed. “Have to be,” he replied. “It’s not like I can let you do it, even if you remembered right now. And the streets are empty. It won’t be a long drive.”

Ryan nodded. “Yeah, I… I wouldn’t be able to help, really.”

Brendon paused and stopped the car just before he was about to leave the parking lot. He looked over and allowed himself for just a moment to think that right now, they could be just like they used to. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “It’s okay, Ry. I promise. I’ll get us home safe and we’ll worry about the rest tomorrow, okay?”

For a moment, Ryan just looked back at him with an expression Brendon couldn’t place. “Yeah,” he finally said. “Okay.”

 

When they reached Brendon’s driveway, the first, very faint traces of sunrise began appearing on the horizon. Brendon unlocked the door and patted the dogs when they came trotting over, sniffing at him as if they wanted to ask where the hell he’d been at this hour. 

“Yeah, yeah, don’t worry you two,” he said as he scratched their ears and let them move on to sniff at Ryan, “I’ll make sure you get your walks.”

Ryan blinked at the two dogs that nudged him with their noses and then decided to just accept his presence and trot back to their preferred sleeping spots. He squinted and tilted his head, the way he’d always done when he tried to remember something. Was he even aware that he was doing that? 

“Do I have a dog? I feel like I have a dog.”

“Pretty sure you do,” Brendon said while getting out of his jacket. “We’ll find your place tomorrow and make sure she’s alright.”

Ryan nodded. “Hey, I know it’s insanely late right now but… would you mind letting me take a quick shower? I feel gross and I don’t think I smell very good.”

“You don’t,” Brendon said with a grin. “Up the stairs, the door right ahead. Towels are in the white cupboard. Just toss your clothes somewhere under the sink, I’ll get you something to wear.”

“Thank you,” Ryan said for what felt like the hundredth time tonight. “Thank you so, so much.”

Brendon dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “Don’t worry about it. Like I said. I’d much rather know you’re safe than worry about a little inconvenience. Now go clean yourself up so we can go to sleep, will ya?”

Ryan smiled and nodded, quietly making his way up the stairs. 

Brendon yawned heartily and rubbed his hands across his face. He was too tired to worry about the situation, he just turned off the downstairs lights and went to his bedroom to pull out some clothes for Ryan. When he came back out, he could hear the water already running in the bath. He knocked on the door. “Hey, I’ve got some clothes for you! I’ll leave them at the door. Don’t worry, I won’t be peeking when you come out to get them.”

He heard something that he was pretty sure was a muffled “Alright, thank you!” and, after making one more quick trip downstairs to fetch himself some water, sat down on his bed waiting, just staring at the wall in an effort not to fall asleep right then and there. 

Thankfully, Ryan barely took another minute to finish his shower and then came tapping into the room. “Hey, thanks,” he said, pushing one hand through his wet hair and gingerly feeling for the bandage. It hadn’t moved and he seemed to have gotten rid of all of the blood. 

Brendon gave him a tired smile. “You look a lot better when you’re not full of blood and puke.”

“Why, thank you.”

Brendon really didn’t know why he said what he said next, but he was tired and just didn’t want to move from his bed anymore. “You can stay here if you want, the bed’s big enough. Or we can get you settled on the couch downstairs.”

Ryan looked down and fiddled with the hem of his shirt. Washed out red. It had to be one of the oldest he owned. “If… if it’s really okay I don’t… I wouldn’t want to be alone. I won’t take up much room, promise.”

Brendon just let himself fall on his back. “This bed is huge and I’m not a giant either. Just do me one favour.”

“Yeah?”

“Pull the blanket out from underneath me. I’m too tired to stand up anymore.”

He heard Ryan chuckle and a moment later, the blanket was being pulled out from under him with surprising swiftness before it landed on top of him.

“Thanks, Ry.”

He felt the mattress dip and shuffling noises as Ryan awkwardly slipped into bed. Brendon forced his eyes open one more time. Ryan was curled up at the outermost corner of the bed, barely close enough to be covered by the blanket. “Come on, at least get under the covers. You’ll freeze if you stay over there.”

Ryan shuffled a little closer and Brendon blindly felt for the switch and killed the lights. “There you go. Night,” he murmured and Ryan whispered “Night” back and then it was quiet. Brendon was too tired to take long to fall asleep, but at some point just before he was completely gone, he heard Ryan whisper his name. When he didn’t reply, warm fingers crept over until they found his hand and held on ever so slightly. Brendon couldn’t muster the energy to pull his hand away anymore and really, this wasn’t an actual problem. A moment later he was fast asleep while the sun already began to rise outside.

 

When Brendon woke up, the bed was empty. He would have wondered whether he’d dreamt it all, but it was way too cohesive to have been a dream and also, the blanket had clearly been flipped away by someone who had gotten up on the other side of the bed. He groaned when the sun blinded him as he opened his eyes and flung his arm over his face. No thank you. Somebody should turn down that aggressively shiny ball in the sky. 

He stayed there for another minute or so before he couldn’t stand it any longer. Maybe Ryan had woken up with his memory all back where it belonged and just left. He was very good at that, after all. 

But when Brendon trotted into the bathroom, Ryan’s clothes were still in a little pile under the sink and he probably wouldn’t have just left them there, right? He splashed some water into his face, rubbed it dry with a towel and shook his head out like a wet dog. What did he know what Ryan Ross would or would not do at this point. 

He grabbed the pile of clothes and tossed them into the washing machine with some of his own stuff, got the thing started on its cycle and went downstairs. He found Ryan on the couch, a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and Bogart on his lap. Penny was munching away at some last remainders of food in her dish. 

“Already stealing my dog, I see,” Brendon said and Ryan jumped a bit and turned around to face him. “Morning,” he said with a sheepish smile. “I woke up a while ago when the dogs pawed at the door, so I went and got them food. I only went through some bits of your kitchen to find it and got the blanket, I didn’t touch anything else.”

“Don’t worry, I’ve got nothing to hide,” Brendon said with a shrug. “And uh, thank you.”

Ryan smiled in response and Brendon yawned once more, trotted over to the open kitchen area and, like the sophisticated man that he was, grabbed a box of Cheerios from one of the cupboards. “So. Any more memories popping up in your wobbly brain there?”

Ryan shook his head. “Not really. I’m very sure I’ve got a dog though, now. I kept expecting yours to look different from what they did when they nudged me.”

Brendon nodded, unceremoniously sticking his hand in the box and shoving a handful of dry cereal in his mouth. Sophisticated to the fullest. 

He had expected that kind of answer. Ryan’s behaviour still seemed too shy, almost timid compared to what he thought it would probably be if he remembered more about their relationship. 

He got a bowl from the dishwasher that he hadn’t bothered to empty yet and shot a glance over to the guy on the couch who was still absorbed in petting the Jack Russell on his lap. “Hey, dog whisperer. Want some cereal? I probably have something fancier around if you like, too.”

“Cereal sounds perfect,” Ryan said with a grin and made to get up. 

“Oh no, you stay there and pet the dog,” Brendon ordered immediately. “Don’t you dare disturb the puppy.”

Bogart had barely reacted at all to the movement going on underneath him, but Ryan obediently settled back down and resumed scratching the dog’s ears. “Yes dad, whatever you say dad.”

Brendon snorted while filling up the bowls. “I don’t like your tone, young man!”

“We’re literally the same age.”

“Hey!” Brendon reproachfully pointed a spoon at Ryan. “You just made me your dad, so act like it!”

Ryan’s eyes sparkled with amusement. “Yes dad. Whatever you say dad.”

“You’re grounded,” Brendon said and brought the two bowls over to the couch, handing one to Ryan and sitting down with the other. He rubbed Bogart’s ears and then beckoned for Penny, who happily came waddling over and jumped up next to him. “But hey, you remember we’re both old, so congrats on that!”

“Yeah,” Ryan managed through a mouthful of cereal, “Truly an achievement.”

“Stop speaking with your mouth full,” Brendon replied with a mouth that was in no way empty. Ryan shot him a look. “Tell that to my dad, he didn’t raise me any better than this.”

“Don’t have a mirror.”

“Tragic.”

They shared another amused look and enjoyed the rest of their dog-assisted breakfast in silence. 

 

“So, uh. I still don’t know where I live,” Ryan said, Penny in arms, while he watched Brendon unload the dishwasher, put their dirty bowls back inside and wipe off the countertop haphazardly. 

“Yeah, neither do I, but I’ll try to reach out to some people who probably do. They’re much better fitted to help you with this memory-thing, too.”

Ryan paused and set Penny down. “You’re kicking me out?”

“No, I – look, I’m really not the right guy for the job, Ryan. Once you remember certain things, you will very much agree with me on that. I’m not trying to get rid of you, I just don’t want to put myself in a position neither of us would really want me to be in. I don’t want to be the person you rely on when you’re vulnerable because shit went down between us that you don’t even remember right now, but I very much do. And as much as I know that right now I really am in no position to be a dick about any of it because you don’t even know what I’m talking about, I can’t just pretend that I’ve forgotten, too.

“I’m trying to be fair to you, but I know myself well enough to know that I might very well snap at you over things that you can’t apologize for or explain to me when you don’t know what they are. And once you do remember, you won’t want to do either of those things anyways, you’ll want to get the hell out of here. I don’t think you’ll care to be here once you remember because you didn’t care to call me or text me back when you were still yourself, so I’m pretty sure you decided against wanting me back in your life before all of this happened. And for one, I’m not going to try and use this… situation as an opportunity to try and override that decision of yours, plus why would I want to if you very clearly showed me that you didn’t give a shit about the perspective of us having any contact at all again.” 

After Brendon finished, it was very quiet for a while, save for the sound of Penny wrestling with one of her toys. Finally, Ryan spoke again, voice sounding thick. “Okay, I… that was a lot. You’re right, I don’t know what happened and I don’t know what I’d want if I was fully myself right now. Neither can I really apologize for anything because I don’t know what I did or didn’t do. But despite all that, I know very clearly what I’m okay with and what I want right now, and I don’t think that has any less significance than what I might hypothetically want in a different situation because the situation is _this_ now, and I very obviously can’t change that at will. 

“And right now, I _am_ sorry. You’ve been nothing but nice to me and gone out of your way to make sure I was okay, you let me stay here with you and despite whatever happened between us, you still care and want to help me, because if you didn’t then you wouldn’t explain to me why you think it’s a bad idea for you specifically to do it. If you really didn’t care, you’d find the next best person to take over babysitting me and fuck off without bothering to explain, but you don’t. I really, really appreciate that.”

Brendon went to interject, but Ryan shook his head. “Please, let me just. Finish this before I get it all mixed up.”

Brendon nodded and let him continue. “I don’t know what the best way to deal with this is, or who would be best to help me. I don’t remember anyone from my past but you right now. And right now, I want it to be you so that when I do remember what led to us not being friends anymore, I can also remember why we once were. I know that’s not a good reason and I don’t expect you to deal with… this,” he gestured to himself, “just because I have this idea right now. But I… I do hope that, when we find someone else who can help me do this, you’ll stick around. At least a bit. 

“I don’t know if it’s a good idea, but right now all I can think of when I see you is how incredibly grateful I am that you were there at the right time and that I want to make things right, wherever they went wrong. I want to try and talk it out when I remember what it is that made this happen in the first place, provided that you’re on the same page with me.”

Brendon just looked at him for a long while without saying anything. 

“Please,” Ryan added quietly, “At least think about it. You don’t have to decide right now. But maybe that way, at least something good can come out of this mess I dragged you into.”

Brendon let out a deep sigh and flung the kitchen towel away, landing it in the sink. “How am I supposed to behave like a dick to you when your memory loss makes you so god damn considerate, Ross?” 

Ryan’s worried expression began to crack open into a smile. “So you’ll think about it?”

“Yeah,” Brendon sighed again and couldn’t help but smile back. “I’ll think about it, you insufferable jerk. Come on, I’m soft enough to give you a hug right now, and I’m telling you that’s a fucking milestone considering the radio silence between us for the past years.”

Ryan beamed and wrapped his arms so tightly around him that Brendon thought he might just have done he first step to repairing something he thought was impossible to save at this point. “Thank you,” he heard Ryan say somewhere just above his ear. “I know I’ve said that a million times by now and you’re tired of hearing it, but thank you so much.”

“Thank yourself, Ross. I’m pretty sure this one’s on you and your fuckity brain.”

“Aw gee. Thanks fuckity brain,” Ryan said in a deadpan voice, making them both chuckle. 

“Alright,” Brendon said and took a step back eventually, “We still need to figure out where you live and save your dog, so. I’ll go and try to reach some people. Do you remember how a dryer works?”

“Of course I remember how a dryer works!”

“Just making sure. I chucked a bunch of clothes into the washing machine for a quick cycle, they should be done by now. If you could throw them in the dryer that would be awesome. Your stuff is in there as well, so you’ll be able to get your own clothes back in a bit.”

“Aw man, I’ve really taken a liking to these sweatpants though.” 

Ryan sighed dramatically, then went up the stairs to make himself useful. Brendon rolled his eyes with a grin. He always had been someone who stole clothes.

 

As it turned out, Spencer did still catch up with Ryan, albeit very sporadically, and was in fact able to provide them with his address. He also knew Z was currently away visiting family and Dan apparently was hanging out somewhere in Canada, however couldn’t give him any helpful leads as to anyone else. He knew Ryan and Jon still kept contact, but he had fallen out of that loop pretty early on. He himself was in Europe and thus not really an option for the “Bring back Ryan Ross’ memories 2k16” project at this point in time, either. 

“How did that even happen to him? You said you just – found him in the street with a bloody head?!”

“Well, he called me because he had my number in his pocket from back in October, at the Halloween party. Fuck if I know why he had that with him or why he kept it without using it, but when I got him he was messed up. Brought him in to get his head checked out and they basically said physically, he was pretty much fine but like I said, his memory is all fucked up.”

“Did they run any tests or anything?”

“Nah, they patched up his head, gave us some crash course info on amnesia and sent us on our merry way.”

“They didn’t even keep him there overnight?”

“No, like I said, in and out. Pretty quickly actually.”

“Where’d he stay if you didn’t know where he lives?”

“With me, duh? What did you think I’d do with him, leave him on his own in that state? I took him to mine, but we’re gonna have to check on his dog and find someone to help him out of this mess better than I can. Plus, if anything’s gonna jog his memory, his own house is probably a good starting point.”

Spencer was silent for a moment. “I don’t mean to say that I expected anything less of you, but, you know. With your history, I wasn’t sure you’d be all too keen on having him stay with you.”

Brendon sighed. “I need to work on my image, don’t I? I mean yeah, normally I probably would’ve told him to find himself somewhere else to crash and not come to me of all people, but it’s not like he could’ve gone anywhere else. And he doesn’t remember any of the shit from back then. It’s not like I stopped caring about it, but I can’t be mad at him over something he isn’t even aware of. And he’s… I don’t know if it’ll last when he gets his brain working again, but he’s so ready to talk about it and make it right, I… I don’t think I can just turn my back on a chance to actually resolve that with him, you know? It’s not like we’ve ever _really_ tried before and as messed up as it is, I think he has a point in saying that it might just be what we need to finally put that behind us.”

Spencer made some noise that sounded like he was agreeing when a thumping noise came from the top of the stairs. Brendon frowned. “Ryan? You sure you remember how a dryer works? You’re not supposed to wrestle it, you know!”

“I just slipped, your pretentious ass modern stairs are a nightmare!” Ryan yelled back as he came slowly back down the stairs, rubbing his lower back. 

“My pretentious ass modern stairs are fucking nice to look at, okay!”

“Compensating much?”

“Beware, Ross. You’re gonna get payback for that as soon as I’m done with Spencer here,” Brendon threatened jokingly and waved his phone. Ryan did his little squinty head-tilt. “Spencer?”

“If you don’t remember by the time we’re done I’ll fill you in, hold on – sorry, Ryan is attacking my taste in living spaces.”

“Yeah,” Spencer said, “I heard most of it.”

He sounded strange. Brendon sighed. “Out with it, Smith. I remember that tone. What do you want to say that you’re not currently saying?”

“Nothing, really. Just… you sound like you used to with him. Like. You were cussing him out, but lovingly.”

“I’m gonna lovingly kick your ass when I see you again, mate.”

“Oh, suddenly that’s in the cards?”

“Stranger things are currently happening right now, my man. Infinite possibilities! But look, I think we should head out and check on Ryan’s dog.”

“Dottie, yeah, you probably should.”

“Thanks. Knowing her name will likely help,” Brendon grinned. “It’s been good talking to you again, really has.”

They said their goodbyes, Brendon hung up the phone and threw a pillow at Ryan, who was leaning against the counter doing his squinty face. 

“My stairs are great!”

“Your stairs are a safety hazard and should be treated accordingly. Is Spencer… we used to spend time together, right? You, me, him and Jon. I vaguely remember a guy named Jon.”

Oh boy, here it came. “Yeah. See that cover over there?”

Brendon pointed to the Pretty.Odd. cover that graced the wall to Ryan’s right. “We worked on that album together. Jon only joined us for that one, we had a dude called Brent for the one before.”

“Oh yeah, right! We made an album together?” 

Ryan looked positively electrified. Brendon nodded. “Yeah. Panic! At The Disco ring a bell?”

Ryan’s eyes widened even further. “We… were in a band.”

“Yeah. We recorded A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out first, then that one over there called Pretty Odd. Got pretty popular, too.”

Ryan’s head-tilting-while-squinting-really-hard activities intensified, and Brendon had to hold back a smile. He definitely wasn’t aware he was doing that.

“Ugh, it’s all so _cloudy!”_ Ryan finally groaned in frustration. “Like. I can tell it’s _there,_ I just can’t remember it right, it’s all so blurry. But I know it’s there.”

“Well, you really should first remember meeting me. I mean, we were childhood friends.”

Ryan frowned. “No we weren’t. I know I knew Spencer before I knew you. His name is… I don’t know, it feels older.”

“Correct,” Brendon said. He got up, stretched his arms out over his head and threw his phone on the couch. “Sorry, I was just kind of curious if you’d be able to distinguish between actual memories and things someone just tells you.”

“Don’t do that,” Ryan said, annoyed. “It’s bad enough I can’t remember my own past without you helping me along, you don’t need to experiment with my memories at my expense.”

“I wasn’t planning on doing it again! It just might be helpful for me to know how your memory-reacquisition works because Spencer’s not currently available and neither are the few other contacts of yours that I really know of. So it seems you’re stuck with me for now unless going to your place will snap you out of it immediately.”

Ryan still looked grumpy. “Fine. Okay. Just – please don’t do that again.”

“I told you. I won’t,” Brendon said, and after a second, he added a somewhat gentle “I promise” to that statement. Ryan audibly let out a breath as if he was willing himself to let it go and nodded. “Okay. Thank you. I’m just… I don’t like the blur as is.”

“Understandable. Now come on, I’ll find you some pants since yours won’t be dry yet and then let’s get over to yours. It’s pretty late already and Dottie must be freaking the hell out.”

“Oh my god, that’s her name! I’ve been wondering all day.”

“Hey, one request,” Brendon said over his shoulder while he already ascended his _very nice stairs,_ thank you very much! “If you’ve got any questions when it comes to memories, just ask me. If I don’t know you won’t lose anything, but I might be able to provide you with said info. That said, I wasn’t 100 on her name being Dottie either.”

He heard Ryan make a noise that sounded a lot like an involuntary chuckle mixed with a sigh. 

 

The drive didn’t take as long as Brendon had thought it would. Somehow, he hadn’t been able to imagine that Ryan could be this close, still, after all this time. He had somehow expected them to live a few states apart, not a few couple of minutes. 

When they made it there, Ryan seemed nervous. Brendon shot him a look after the car stopped. “Hey. You okay?”

“I don’t know. What if I remember nothing? I recognize this place, but it doesn’t… I thought it would do more to see my own home.”

“Well, one step at a time. You recognize it, that’s better than if it was just like any strange house. You’ve remembered me, Spencer, Jon, you knew when I lied to you – yeah, I know, sorry – and giving you a piece of information you should have seems to be working out pretty well so far. I said Dottie’s name and you immediately knew that was her name. You didn’t have a doubt. So let’s get you inside and see if you remember where the dog food is.”

“Under the kitchen sink.”

“See,” Brendon said with a grin when Ryan realized what he’d said. Ryan beamed. “Thanks, Bren.”

Brendon didn’t know how to react to that. He hadn’t heard Ryan call him that in years. So, instead of replying, he just managed a crooked grin and got out of the car. Ryan followed and his face fell only a few steps later. “I don’t have the key.”

“Nope, but I know exactly where you hide your spare.”

“How.”

“Spencer had to watch your dog for a day or so at some point. He told me.”

Ryan frowned. “I can’t remember that one.”

“Maybe it’s too mundane? I promise I wasn’t stalking you.”

Brendon stopped and faced Ryan, who still looked troubled. “I’m not lying. I won’t lie about your memories ever again. When it comes to this, you can trust me. I promise.”

“When it comes to this?” Ryan echoed. Brendon looked down. “Yeah. I can’t claim your trust for anything else because I’m pretty sure you haven’t trusted me with anything in a long time. But we haven’t spoken in a long time. So I can only speak for right now.”

He looked back into Ryan’s eyes. They still looked somewhat troubled. “I’m with you now. You asked me to be in this with you this morning, and I am. I’m here.”

“But you have to be,” Ryan replied, looking away. “There’s nobody else around to do it.”

“That’s true. But that doesn’t mean I’m not trying. Now, can you trust me for long enough to let us both in? Dottie has been alone for too long, and if you remember everything once we’re inside, this conversation is pretty pointless.”

Ryan sighed and nodded. “Okay.”

Brendon went around the house to the back and fished the spare key out of a candleholder on a windowsill. He glanced inside. Nothing. Just an empty kitchen. 

He walked back and handed Ryan the key. He stared down at it, then he went and opened the door. His hands were shaking, and Brendon could see how nervous he was. He didn’t know whether he wanted Ryan to remember everything when he entered the house, or maybe he just didn’t want to be there to see it. Maybe… maybe he wished he could be Ryan’s anchor for a while longer. He pushed the thought aside. They had to focus on the dog for now.

Ryan stepped inside and Brendon followed. Dottie came barrelling at them when they had barely set a foot in, ears flying behind her, and began jumping at Ryan’s legs. He laughed and knelt down, only for her to begin licking his entire face. Her tail was wagging so forcefully, her entire body was shaking. 

“Hey,” Ryan laughed, cuddling her to his chest. “Hey girl! Yeah, I missed you too! You must be hungry, right? Yeah, you’re really hungry, I’ll get you your food right now, yes… yes, come on! Come on, let’s get you some food!”

Brendon had that tightness in his chest again as he watched the scene. He thought of Bogart and Penny, and how he’d have to take them on an extra long walk when he got back because he hadn’t found the time to yet. He watched Ryan disappear into the house, Dottie following him and running in excited circles around him. He didn’t know if he should follow, but he hadn’t been told to leave either, so he assumed his presence was still tolerated.

He was tense. He didn’t know how to deal with the prospect of facing Ryan – actually facing him, with all his memories intact, which would mean Brendon would also have to face his own. And would Ryan really want to talk it out after remembering? Would they be able to resolve that age-old disagreement?

“Hey, Brendon. You didn’t run off, did you?”

He closed the door and followed Ryan’s voice into the kitchen. He was scooping a generous amount of food into Dottie’s dish while she sat next to him, watching carefully and tail still wagging so hard that it shook her entire body. 

“Not yet,” Brendon replied with a crooked grin. Ryan smiled. It was no beaming smile like in the car, but it was genuine. He set the dish down and immediately, Dottie’s undivided attention was on the food. 

“You ready for me to take off?” Brendon asked cautiously. Ryan paused, smile fading. 

“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “I know this place, of course I do. But it hasn’t unlocked the floodgates. I mean, I haven’t taken a close look yet, either. Had to look after her, first.”

He glanced down at Dottie happily munching away and smiled. “Come on,” he said then, “She’ll be busy for a bit. Join me on memory lane.”

He made a dramatic, sweeping gesture and Brendon laughed. “Okay, as you wish.”

They left the kitchen for the rest of the house. First up was a cozy living room with an actual fireplace that however didn’t look like it had been used in a while. They also discovered that Dottie had used the rug in front of it as a makeshift toilet. Then followed a big, open room filled with all sorts of music equipment and instruments. Brendon spotted the pieces of the guitar Ryan had wrecked some time during the Nothing Rhymes With Circus tour that had later given them the idea to destroy some more instruments for the Mad As Rabbits video. He didn’t know how to identify the feeling that gave him. It was similar to the tightness in his chest he was getting decidedly too familiar with. 

Only a bathroom, the bedroom and a storage room were left, all decently roomy and cozy – even the storage couldn’t quite shake that vibe. They looked like home to someone Brendon had once known. Like a distant memory of something that he couldn’t quite grasp. He wondered if that was how Ryan felt when he couldn’t quite get a hold of his memories, knowing they were somehow just out of his reach. 

After a bit of snooping on Ryan’s part and Brendon awkwardly standing by, Ryan just leaned against a wall and sighed. He looked defeated. “I _know_ this place,” he said, eyes closed and sounding tired. “When I look somewhere, I know what I’ll find. If you asked me what was in a drawer or a cupboard, I’d know. But I don’t know why it’s there. I don’t… I don’t know why I have half of it.”

“Uh… could you try paraphrasing that? I’m not sure I understand what kind of blockage you’re dealing with.”

“Like… when I looked into my closet. There were a bunch of shirts – surprise, surprise – but they feel… generic. I might just as well be looking at a rack in a store. None of them have any special significance. I couldn’t tell you which one was my favourite, which one I’ve had for way too long and which one I only keep because it reminds me of something specific. They’re all just shirts.”

Brendon nodded slowly. “I think I get it. Um. Okay, I won’t be able to help you with that, but. I mean, I don’t know, maybe shirts just don’t have significance for you like that?”

“Maybe.” 

It didn’t sound like he was convinced. Dottie came trotting around the corner and sniffed at Brendon, acknowledging his presence for the first time, really, and then nudged Ryan’s leg. He looked down at her and smiled a lopsided smile. “At least I know who you are, hm, Dot? You’re the most important one in this house, anyways.”

He bent down to scratch her ears and ended up kneeling next to her, arms around her and hiding his face against her back while she patiently sat and wagged her tail. 

“I just thought it… I hoped it would be easy. Find my way back home, find my way back to myself, you know?” he said, more to himself or maybe Dottie than to Brendon. “And I do remember things… but they’re all just. General things, and they only show how many blind spots there still are… and I’m scared I’ll never remember the important stuff.” 

His voice was quivering and Brendon was torn between trying to get him back to his feet and out of his gloom and just letting him be for a while. Then, an idea sprang into his mind. He quietly left Ryan with Dottie and went to get the broken guitar. He couldn’t tell Ryan what his favourite shirt was, but he knew the story behind this. 

“Hey,” he said, sitting down on the floor next to Ryan who was still absorbed in cuddling his dog. He looked up, eyes shiny and sad. “Sorry, I guess I’m hoping for miracles here. Shouldn’t be expecting so much so quickly, right?”

Brendon leaned against the adjacent wall with his guitar pieces and shrugged. “I get it, man. This is your home. If anything should be a miracle cure for amnesia, then it should be this, right? I don’t think I’d handle it much better if I felt like my own house was a weird parallel universe.”

“That’s describing it pretty well,” Ryan said with a wet laugh. He sniffed. “Why have you got that out of the other room?”

“I know it,” Brendon simply said. He let his fingers glide over the broken instrument. “I was there when you wrecked it. It was a magnificent sight, really. I thought… I mean, I can’t help you with your shirts, but I can tell you this story and see what that does?”

“Are you _sure_ we stopped being friends?” Ryan asked, leaning back against his own wall while Dottie settled next to him. “You’re so…”

“What?”

“Kind. Warm. For someone I supposedly haven’t talked to for years before last night, you’re making it incredibly easy for me to just… let go. From the moment you found me, you’ve just always _known_ what to do.”

“I’m trying to be reasonable,” Brendon said with a half-smile. “And you’re… I knew you. You’re still surprisingly much like the person I knew when you can’t remember what happened and I pretend it didn’t happen. It’s… it’s not what I’d prefer to getting it properly cleared up, but I can’t say I don’t like being ignorant at the moment.”

And I don’t want to risk this friendship again when we finally have to acknowledge it, he thought. Despite everything he wanted to ask and the wish that, even after all these years he’d get to express how he’d been hurt by it then, he was beginning to wonder whether he might not be willing to just leave it in the past and start again. Settling back in with Ryan had just been too easy. Then again, this wasn’t exactly indicative of anything, considering that right now, he was the only person around to be a kind of gateway to Ryan’s memories. Or some of them, at least. He would need someone else to fill the year-long gap after their split.

“I can’t say I want to remember what you’re ignoring right now,” Ryan admitted quietly. “The way it is now, I want to resolve it and move on, with you as my friend, but it’s… kind of scary to think about it because I haven’t the foggiest idea of what on earth could have let me lose a friend like you.”

Brendon felt that feeling tugging at his chest again. He cleared his throat and held up the guitar. “While we’re still agreeing that for now, ignorance is bliss: want to know how you set fire to this and smacked it in two when you realized it was, in fact, burning?”

“More than anything,” Ryan replied with a genuine grin. Brendon smiled and went to take them both back to times when they had been still so young and desperate for attention.

 

It was late afternoon when they stopped to wonder what the time was. Brendon had told Ryan the story of his guitar on fire, Ryan had filled in some details and thrown in some more fragmented memories for Brendon to complete. Finally, Dottie whining at the door to go out brought them back to reality. “Oh god, will this ever not lead to my dog suffering,” Ryan sighed and got to his feet. 

“God, I’ve got to walk Bogart and Penny, too. They’ve had to stay inside all day.”

“I’m sorry I got carried away with memory-hunting.”

“Well I’ll give you one thing, I can’t remember you ever apologizing this much. Not ever have I known you to be this apologetic.”

“Uh. Sorry about that?” Ryan said with a shrug and Brendon laughed. They put the guitar wreck back in its place and Ryan opened the back door to let Dottie outside into his back yard. 

“Okay, um. I’ve got a proposition.”

“Do you now? Propose away, then,” Brendon grinned. Ryan gently shoved him. 

“Well, I… could I spend another night at yours? I’ll take the couch, too, I’m just kind of spooked by the fact that I feel like a knowledgeable stranger in my own house.”

“Be my guest,” Brendon said with a little smile. 

Ryan looked past him at Dottie running in happy circles across the grass. “You don’t have to agree. I don’t want to ask too much, it’s not like I can’t stay here. You don’t have to feel like it’s your responsibility to – “

“Ryan,” Brendon cut him off. He took him by the shoulders and waited for Ryan to look back at him before he continued to speak. “I would prefer to have another person around who can help you figure this out, yes. But it’s not because I can’t be bothered to help you. I told you, we’ve had our problems, and when it comes to it, I don’t know how that will go down. For both of us, it might be better if there was someone else around so you didn’t have to deal with this by yourself and we could get some time apart in case we can’t work it out. Because no matter what happened, I don’t want it to make the current situation harder on you. And I…” 

He trailed off and sighed. He’d have to say it. “And I don’t want to risk us falling apart over it again when we don’t have to. But for that to work, if we need to get away from each other for a while, then I don’t want you to have to rely on me for anything. I’m not saying you _need_ anyone, that you couldn’t do it on your own or that you’re helpless. I’m saying you shouldn’t have to do it alone just because I might not be the one to do it with you.”

Ryan sighed. “Why are you so sure we’ll fight about it. Is it really so bad? Can’t you just… tell me, get it over with?”

Brendon breathed deep. In and out. He was going to play fair. He was going to _try_ for this. “I could. But for one, I’m selfish and I want to give you some more recent, good memories of me to disarm whatever negative opinion you might or might not still have of me. And for another… I don’t think it’s very fair of me to try and tell you how a fight went that you were a part of. You would have only my perspective and the whole reason we fought was because obviously, we didn’t agree with each other and came from two very different places. I don’t want to influence your memory of it.”

“I don’t think that’s selfish,” Ryan said. His face was earnest. “I’d probably want the same thing. But we can talk it over later tonight, since it seems I get to come back with you.”

He gave Brendon a crooked grin. “Let me ‘propose away’ again – I’ll clean up that rug Dottie used as her personal toilet, you go back and walk the dogs. I’ll wait here for you, maybe try to find my favourite shirt again.”

“You sure? I might take a while, they haven’t been out all day.”

“I’ll be okay. Promise. I remember how to be alone from time to time.”

“Remarkable. Another success,” Brendon grinned. “I’ll try to be back before dark.”

“Take the key.”

Brendon nodded and realized he was still holding him by the shoulders. He had the sudden urge to hug him and pushed it away. Instead, he took a step back, nodded again and left to deal with the reproachful dogs that were sure to await him.

 

When he got back, Ryan was sprawled out on the floor of the music room with his eyes closed, listening to She Had The World. Brendon was somewhat taken aback, but after a moment or two, he knocked on the open door and Ryan opened his eyes. 

“I might have to get another rug,” he said. 

“That bad?”

“Can’t blame her.”

For a moment, they were silent and the music danced around them in the air. 

 

_I don’t love you, I’m just passing the time_  
_You could love me if I knew how to lie_  
_But who could love me, I am out of my mind_  
_Throwing a line out to see_  
_To see if I can catch a dream_

 

“We sounded like the Beatles,” Ryan said. “Is the whole album like that? I mean, probably, but does it really all sound like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band?”

“Remembering all the greats, I see,” Brendon replied. He couldn’t bring himself to smile, or help the next question. “How much of it did you listen to?”

Ryan got up and walked over to a desk in the corner that was home to a laptop. He hit space and their young voices fell silent. “Just that one,” he said. “Pulled it up on Spotify and let it shuffle just before you came back.”

He turned around and Brendon decided that he looked to calm to have remembered that which he wished he would never remember. Instead he just smiled. “Ready to go?”

 

_I’m ready to go_  
_Get me out of my mind_  
_Get me out of my mind_

 

Get me out of my mind so I can throw a line and see if I can catch a dream, Brendon thought to himself. Was he going to be thinking in songs again?

“Ready to go,” he confirmed. “Let’s get Dottie and go home. Or, well. To mine anyways.”

“Alright. I packed some of my own clothes that may or may not be my favourites.”

He did that crooked grin again, but there was no sadness in it this time.

 

When they got back, Bogart immediately had to find out just who that new dog was they’d brought back with them. Penny didn’t seem to care enough to get up from the couch. The meeting went over well enough and it didn’t take long for Dottie to find the blanket Ryan had wrapped around himself in the morning and curl up on it. 

Brendon yawned. It wasn’t all that late yet, but he felt like he was still tired out from the night before. Ryan didn’t seem to be feeling much different, either, even though he wasn’t yawning yet. 

“So. Want the couch tonight?” Brendon asked. “Sorry to be such a sorry entertainer, but I think I’m gonna call it a night early today.”

“Wouldn’t mind going to sleep early either,” Ryan replied, and like the night before he was becoming fidgety. “I think the real question is, can we bear to evict the dogs from the couch.”

Dottie seemed to have fallen asleep on the blanket, Penny was snoring a bit away from her all stretched out on her back. Bogart was still lazily walking about the place with a toy in his mouth, but he, too, seemed like he was ready to just curl up any minute now.

“Well, if you can’t have that on your conscience, the bed is always an option again. It worked fine last night.”

“Is that okay?”

So that really was it.

“Of course it is.”

Ryan got that sheepish smile again. “If I stay another night, I’ll let you have it back to yourself, promise.”

“What if the dogs are claiming the couch again?”

“I’ll just sleep with them in perfect harmony.”

“And you don’t want to do that tonight?”

“I… Ryan looked away. “It helps to not sleep alone. It’s… it’s kind of nice to know that someone is right there when your own head is so empty.”

Brendon smiled at that. That was kind of adorable. “We’ll fill that head of yours back up. If nothing else, I can always tell you so many terrible jokes that you’ll worry about where to put them all.”

“Into one ear, out the other seems like a great plan for those.”

“Rude!”

They wound up eating some little thing to make up for the near total lack of nutritional intake over the day, followed it up with an only slightly rushed round of general hygiene activities respectively and, once done with that, were both ready to fall into bed. 

This time, Ryan wasn’t quite so shy about actually getting _into_ the bed rather than trying to just make the outermost edge work for him, but he still had to be persuaded to actually make use of the covers. 

“Do you want your own blanket?” Brendon asked. “I have a spare one somewhere.”

“No, I’m fine, I just don’t want to hog the covers.”

“I’ll just pull them back, don’t worry. If anything like this, that just tends to be a side effect of having another person in your bed truly bothered me, I’d tell you.”

“Okay.”

Brendon killed the lights and it went dark around them. 

“Hey, Bren?”

“Yeah?”

“I just remembered something else.”

“What?”

“That you’re a fucking nerd.”

“Ross, I swear to god – “, Brendon groaned and smacked a pillow on Ryan’s general shape next to him.

He heard Ryan chuckle in the dark. 

 

It became somewhat of a routine over the following days for Brendon to drop Ryan off at his and take off again to catch up with his work or do other exciting things such as grocery shopping. Sometimes he’d bring his laptop and just work on something over there.

But despite Ryan remembering more and more of his past each day, he never seemed to recall the split and neither did he fail to make a sheepish face each night and ask to spend just one more night at Brendon’s. And every time, Brendon couldn’t get himself to tell him no. In fact, he kind of liked the ritual of it, complete with its implication that until the next day, they could still pretend everything was fine. They didn’t even mention the couch anymore. The dogs had claimed that as their sleeping spot anyways. 

He didn’t know how many nights in it even was anymore when they just sat on the couch, sprawled out with Bogart on the corner piece between them while Dottie and Penny were keeping each other entertained. They’d had some drinks, talked some music, and were now just kind of dozing about in the dim light. 

“I’m bored. Wanna play truth or dare,” Brendon finally said jokingly. 

Ryan snorted. “Well that’s lame if you’re only two people, who are also very far from still being teenagers.”

“Truth or dare is always fun, you old man! It has no age restrictions.”

“How do you even envision playing truth or dare with a literal case of amnesia.”

Brendon shrugged and took another sip of beer. “Improvisation is always fun.”

Ryan seemed to pause for a second, then he breathed out slowly and said: “You know what. I’ll give you two truths and a lie.”

Brendon frowned. Somehow, the atmosphere had just changed. “Okay?”

“My dog’s name is Dorothy, my favourite shirt is black with purple flowers on it and I’m telling you the truth.”

Brendon blinked. “Easy, her name is Dottie. What’s up with the sphinx-level option in there?”

“Her name _is_ Dorothy,” Ryan replied. Brendon couldn’t read his face at all. “I call her Dottie for short.”

Brendon paused. Ryan’s favourite shirt from way back in the day had indeed been a washed out black thing with purple hibiscus flowers printed on it. And if that was really still true, or if Ryan had picked that option just so Brendon would be able to identify it as true…

“You’re lying to me.”

Ryan spun his empty bottle in his hands, eyes cast down. “I am.”

“That’s a very general statement.”

Ryan pressed his lips together. “I’ve remembered,” he said, voice quieting down with each syllable. “I’ve remembered everything.”

The way he said it did not make it sound like that was a good thing. Brendon breathed out heavily. “At least you’ve got yourself back, then.”

“I’ve known for three days.”

It was barely a whisper and Brendon felt something inside him freeze. “Three days? You’ve remembered everything – _everything_ – three _days_ ago?!”

Ryan just nodded. Brendon stared at him in utter disbelief. “Why didn’t you _tell me?!”_

“I didn’t want to talk about it. You know, the split. The fighting. Everything. I didn’t want to explain – “

“You left me in the dark, on purpose, even though you _knew_ I wasn’t super keen on talking about it either? You still could’ve _told me,_ Ryan, after all I’ve done to try and help you. Do you know how often I wondered what to do if you never remembered it all, what I should do? I’ve been there for you the entire time, trying to help you get your memories back, worrying about what it would mean if I failed to do it right, if I did something wrong and locked you out of your own head forever.”

“I’m sorry,” Ryan said. He still wasn’t looking at Brendon. 

“You’ve been sorry since day one! I thought it was because you needed me to be there and you knew that I was putting you before everything else these past days, not because you just – let me do that and prioritize you over myself when you knew _damn well_ I didn’t have to! I thought I… I thought I could be getting back a friend.”

“You were. You have.”

“You’re not behaving like a friend, Ross. You haven’t behaved like a friend since 2009!”

“Don’t bring 2009 into a problem we’re having right now! I’m not telling you either how much I’m used to be just an experiment to you because of what you did back then!”

“When have I ever treated you like an experiment?!”

Finally, Ryan looked up. His eyes looked like they had in that last moment Brendon remembered from all the way back – like an angry fire. “You told me lies to see if I would believe you and try to remember them as truths! You came up to me on Halloween like everything was _just fine,_ throwing your number in there just to see what I would do, if I would fall for that one again.”

“How am _I_ responsible for what went down with that crazy chick?! You think I’m _happy_ about that? I gave you my number because I thought that _maybe, just maybe_ after we fell apart what at that point was _five years ago_ , we had a chance of being friends again. I texted you, and you could’ve checked very easily if the numbers matched up. But you never even replied.”

“You didn’t even apologize, you didn’t even _offer_ to talk about anything. You just swooped in like we were back in the sun together, expecting me to think the same!”

“I wanted to talk, Ross, which is why I _gave you my number_ so we wouldn’t end up with something like _this,”_ he gestured to the two of them, “in the middle of a _packed_ Halloween party. What did you want me to do, find your house and just ring the doorbell? That wouldn’t have been me acting like everything was fine? I wanted to let you do shit on your own terms, but you just did fuck all.”

“I _tried_ after the split. You were an absolute asshole. I tried to be honest, I tried to do what you did for me now – I put it all out in the open, everything, I told you exactly how I felt about things, and you just – you didn’t care. You wanted your terms or nothing, so in the end that’s what you got because I wasn’t going to be your experiment!”

“My – what?! I don’t know what you were on, but the way you approached me back then I didn’t know how to deal with. You went from one extreme right to the other, what did you think I was going to say when you left the band behind because you didn’t want to invest more than necessary into whatever that was we did back then, and then came back only to turn around and accuse _me_ of not caring enough?!”

Ryan looked tired, angry and sad, and pretty much exactly as miserable as Brendon felt. 

“We were just two teenagers trying to figure out what we liked,” Ryan said. His voice was less angry than before. It just seemed empty. “What we did then, I’d call experimenting, but you can’t tell me it wasn’t mutually consensual. I mean we were out of our minds on drugs half the time, we were always together and we both questioned the same things about ourselves, so of course we tried to find the answers together. I didn’t think anything of it until I looked for answers and experiences with people other than you and you were so mad at me for kissing someone else. 

“I didn’t understand because I thought that all we’d been doing was to screw around and we had never talked about there being anything exclusive about that until you got angry at me for not following a rule we hadn’t even ever made. It felt like you wanted to control me and whom I did what with, we couldn’t agree on that and neither did we agree musically anymore. I mean, just look at what both of us came out with after Pretty Odd. We were drifting apart musically, and that fight had us falling apart as people, too.

“When I tried to make up with you, it was because I was okay with losing my band, but I didn’t want to lose my best friend. But when I tried to talk to you about it, you pushed me away. You didn’t let me in anymore like you used to, because I didn’t know that your mind had been made up about what we were doing and how we were doing it, and you were mad at me for not acting accordingly despite the fact that you never brought it up. You just expected me to know. And when I came back, you told me I was delusional for thinking someone like _me_ could be that important to you. I thought you needed time to calm down, but no matter how much I tried to talk to you about it, you just blocked every attempt at a conversation.”

Ryan breathed in and out, then he gave Brendon a look that was just _done,_ hollow and so very much over it. “There you have it, that’s my side of the story. For once, give me yours without attacking me.”

Brendon wanted to retaliate, but he just took a deep breath. “We got so close back then,” he said. It was easier than he’d thought, to keep his voice calm. “We had the same questions, and we worked so well together. It was so _easy_ with you, I wasn’t used to it being so easy to be so close with another guy. It was experimental, but it was so much more so quickly, and I just… I thought you felt the same. I didn’t _need_ anyone else, I didn’t want any more experiences. I couldn’t understand why you did, and it felt like you needed more than I could give you when I was giving you everything. It hurt. 

“That’s why I was so mad. It felt like I was of so little value to you when you were so important to me. And when you left over that, that was just the final confirmation that you didn’t even care enough to see my side of the story. Then you came back, offering me everything I wanted you to offer me, and I was convinced that you did it only to pacify me, so I would be available to you while you did the same thing again. It made no sense to me that you would suddenly change your entire behaviour because I got mad at you, because to me, it was obvious that if you had really felt accordingly, then you wouldn’t have behaved like that in the first place. I didn’t want to be just someone you could go back to when others got too boring. I didn’t want to be someone whose all wasn’t good enough for you.”

Ryan let out an audible breath. “You were never not enough for me.”

Brendon didn’t know how to feel or how to keep talking. He played with his empty beer bottle. “Ryan. Two truths and a lie. My dogs’ names are Penny and Bogart, I sing in Fall Out Boy and I was hopelessly in love with you.”

Ryan couldn’t help a small laugh and ran his hand across his face. “Fine. I’m a recovered amnesiac, my name is Pete Wentz and you didn’t believe me when I finally realized it, but I was so in love with you, too.”

Brendon snorted. “It’s… hold on,” he pulled out his phone and glanced at it, “It’s midnight, I’m going to reunite with My Chemical Romance and I’m offering to put our fighting behind us, ‘cause let’s be real, we’ve been getting along just fine when we both decided not to let it hang over us anymore.”

“I mean, if you did unite with My Chem you’d at least not be one single guy posing as a band anymore, Mr. Brendon at the Disco.”

Brendon pulled a face and Ryan laughed. “It’s nine in the afternoon, your stairs are fucking _horrible_ and I’m very much in favour of burying the hatchet.”

“Well if you insist on continuing to hate me, I can’t help you,” Brendon moped and Ryan laughed so loud that all three dogs raised their heads immediately. 

“I’m not going back on the stairs.”

Brendon grumbled. “ _I_ like my stairs, thank you very much.”

“That’s ‘cause you’re pretentious.”

 _“I’m_ pretentious?! You sound like a fucking beatle!”

“Your nickname is fucking _Beebo!”_

 _“And what about it?!”_ Brendon shouted back a little too loudly before falling back, just missing Bogart by a hair, and laughing harder at that than he probably should have. Ryan joined in almost immediately and Dottie and Penny, who had curled up on the blanket that was on the floor just next to the couch came trotting over to find the two sprawled out, teary-eyed and giggling. 

“Hey Ryan?” Brendon asked, eyes fixed somewhere on the ceiling, one hand still twirling his bottle, the other twisted up to pet whatever part of Bogart he managed to reach.

“You rang?”

Brendon grinned. “Want a hug, Sgt. Pepper?”

“Sure, Beebo.”

“Fuck off,” he said while Ryan fell back into another fit of giggles. Brendon rolled his eyes and got up, plucked Ryan’s empty bottle from his hand and put it on the table together with his. Then he went back over and let himself unceremoniously fall right over top of a still laughing Ryan, who immediately began to struggle and gasp for air in between bursts of laughter.

“Get off me – oh my god Brendon – please, I need _air_ – “

Brendon propped himself up on his elbows and grinned while Ryan dramatically sucked air into his lungs as if he had just barely escaped suffocation. “I think you need to google the definition of _hug_ before you attempt that ever again.”

“Nah,” Brendon just replied gleefully and flopped right back down. “This works fine.”

Ryan shook his head to the best of his ability, wrapping his arms around him. “You’re the one who has to deal with my body, I’ll get to haunt you, so feel free to suffocate me.”

“Alright.” 

They dozed off nearly instantly, warm and comfortable as they were on the couch. When they woke up, Ryan’s entire left arm was numb and Penny was asleep on top of the pile. They couldn’t have been asleep for long because Bogart’s sprawled out position on the corner piece of the couch had not changed one bit, and Bogart could never stay asleep without moving about constantly.

They had turned about enough for Ryan to be able to wiggle himself free from underneath Brendon, causing Penny to wake up and jump down, evidently annoyed that they had disturbed her peace. 

“Hey girl,” Ryan whispered when she gave him an indignant look. “Come on, don’t be mad.”

He held out his hand and she nuzzled it for a moment before tapping a couple steps away and curling up again. Brendon barely moved. The only thing to indicate that he was indeed awake was a lazy opening of his eyes to see where his human plushie had disappeared to.

“Hey,” he mumbled sleepily, but with no less indignation in his voice than Penny had had in her eyes.

“I’d carry you to bed, but I’d probably fall down your wonderful stairs. Also my arm feels like white noise.”

“Excuses,” Brendon grumbled and turned on his side, obviously unwilling to move. Ryan grinned.

“Hey, if you don’t want it, I’ll gladly take your bed. It _is_ very comfortable.” 

Brendon sighed theatrically and pushed himself up. “Alright, alright. I’m up.”

He walked a couple of steps over towards the staircase and then stopped to turn around. “You coming? My arms are fine but I’m not carrying you.”

“Didn’t know whether you’d want me there.”

Brendon shrugged. “We did decide to have peace. And it worked fine before, even though you remembered how to use your brain. So, unless you don’t want to...”

Again, that sheepish grin. Maybe that was just something he did when it came to going to sleep. Like his head-tilt-and-squint when he tried to remember something. 

“No, I do want to. Your bed is nice.”

“Exactly. Now, come on.”

Ryan grinned properly now and followed. They both knew it was different now, but they both knew how to ignore things very efficiently, too.

They fell into bed, the lights went out and it was silent. Brendon kind of expected Ryan to say one last thing before they actually kept quiet because that was also a thing he just tended to _do,_ for reasons that only Ryan Ross understood. But it remained silent. Finally, Brendon gave in.

“No last words tonight?”

“Miss my nightly insults?”

He sounded tired, but the kind of tired that was physical while your mind was still quite awake. Brendon grinned.

“Kinda.”

“Well, these things require meticulous preparation.”

“Just admit that I’m perfect.”

“A perfect display of narcissism is what you are.”

Brendon considered that for a moment. “Yeah, you really should prepare these. That was basically a compliment.”

“Just go to sleep, muppet man.”

“Muppet man?!”

“Beebo sounds like it would be the name of a muppet.”

Brendon chuckled in the dark. “Yeah, it does.”

He could practically hear Ryan grin. 

It was silent for a while, and then just like every other night: “Hey, Bren?”

“Ry?”

“Mind another hug?”

“No, not in the least.”

They felt around in the dark until they knew where the other was and shuffled closer together under the covers. 

“It’s like old times,” Brendon murmured somewhere into Ryan’s shoulder.

He felt Ryan nod. “Yeah. It’s nice.”

“Yeah.”

And then, with the following silence, came sleep.

 

Brendon woke up again and found the room to still be shrouded in darkness. He felt Ryan move next to him and couldn’t help but wrap his arms just a little tighter around him. It really was very much like the old times, just like that it had all worked out. He felt Ryan squeeze him back. “It’s like nothing’s changed, isn’t it,” he whispered. Brendon paused. 

“No… everything’s changed. But it’s like we’re just right back as if nothing ever happened.”

 

_Things have changed for me…_

 

Another squeeze. “I’m not complaining.”

“Neither am I.”

 

_And that’s okay…_

 

For a few heartbeats, they said nothing. Then – 

“For how long were you in love with me?”

“I don’t know. Long,” Brendon said. “I can’t remember ever not loving you back then.”

“We were so young… I’ve always loved you, I think. But I don’t think I knew I was in love until you weren’t there anymore.”

“Yeah… we really were young.”

Again, they were quiet and counted the passing time by their beating hearts. Just like then, the time just passed them by as if it didn’t matter that they would never get these moments back again.

“We’re both thinking it, aren’t we,” Ryan asked, his matter-of-fact voice betraying just how unsure of that statement he really was. 

“We’re both thinking it.” Brendon’s voice was barely even a whisper.

 

_I feel the same…_

 

“Just one.”

“Okay. Just to see.”

“Yeah…”

Just to see. 

It wasn’t like the intense euphoria kisses they’d stolen right behind the stage, not like the lazy kisses shared just before falling asleep, and not like the desperately heated ones that had only come into existence later.

It was like their first ever kiss that both of them barely remembered, and yet would never forget. It was a shy, nervous meeting of lips that had no more words left, and it felt familiar and nerve-wracking all at the same time. Hesitant, careful touches meant to prolong that impossible to replicate spring kiss that felt like the first warmth after the winter. 

They came apart staring at each other in the dark. Both wished they could see each the other’s face, and both were relieved they could not. 

“Once doesn’t hurt,” Brendon whispered.

“But twice makes it count,” Ryan replied just as quietly.

“We’ll have forgotten in the morning.”

“That’s what we said the first time.”

“You kept your promise for a while... I think that counts.”

“What if I want to remember this time?”

“Don’t hit your head.”

There came no reply, instead Ryan kissed him again. And then again, and again, until they fell back asleep in a tangle of limbs. 

 

When they woke up, they had not forgotten, but they also didn’t mention that they remembered. They just went down to greet the dogs and have breakfast. Only then came a pause in the routine that they weren’t sure how to fill, but before anything could come of it, Brendon’s phone started buzzing. 

When he picked up, he was greeted by Spencer.

“Didn’t you say you’d keep me updated, Urie?”

“I texted you!”

“Last time you did, that was three days ago.”

“Fair point, Smith. Don’t worry your brain into our next amnesia case, Ryan’s fine and his head’s back in perfect working order. We found that out late last night and had some shit to sort out, as you can probably guess, so do forgive me for not immediately alerting you.”

“You’re terrible sometimes, do you know that?”

“It’s one of my best features. And yes, we’re good. No more yelling. We decided that was stupid and stopped that.”

“Ah. How long did the shouting last before you came to that conclusion?”

“No idea. We managed to be grown-ups about it eventually though, can you believe that?”

“Time for a midlife crisis themed album, I’d say.”

“There’s the diamond platinum double rainbow gold award record I’ve always wanted.”

Ryan snorted from the floor behind the couch where he was situated to throw Dottie her toy into various directions.

“Golden Boy Brendon will get his special snowflake award, finally the world will know peace!” Spencer replied on the phone, but his tone showed he was joking. “I’ll be back tomorrow, so I can swing by at his place and check in with him. We should catch up in person sometime, too.”

“Yeah, when you’re settled back in and I’ve got my work back in order. Sound like a plan?”

“Sounds like a plan. Well, I’m about to board a plane so I can follow through with that plan, so talk to you later!”

“See you around, Spence.”

Brendon slipped his phone back into his pocket. “So. Spencer is going to be back tomorrow and planning to pay you a visit and quiz you on my behaviour, so I’d say let’s pack you up and get you back home to prepare yourself?”

“Alright,” Ryan said, throwing the toy one last time and watching Dottie run after it with flying ears. “But don’t get too comfortable, I will be back.”

“Oh, don’t threaten me with a good time.”

“Maybe Death of a Bachelor would be better as an autobiographical statement.”

Brendon laughed. “I’ll come back to haunt you. I’ll be Dottie’s ghost friend and turn her on you.”

“Wow, rude.”

They gathered what little Ryan had brought over to Brendon’s place, packed it up and went back to get Dottie and take off when Brendon had a thought. He jumped up the stairs and back down before Ryan had even had the chance to formulate a full question of what he was up to. Brendon held something out to him. “Here. I forgot I still had that, but two truths and a lie reminded me.”

Ryan looked down at Brendon’s hand. It was a shirt, washed out black with purple hibiscus flowers. “You still have that?”

“Yeah. Dunno, I just didn’t want to throw it out. It was your favourite shirt, after all.”

“Yeah, and you kept stealing it until it was yours, jerk! But… thank you. You sure you don’t want to keep it?”

“I’ll just steal another one,” Brendon grinned and Ryan shoved him. Then he hugged him. “Thanks, Bren.”

“Oh wow, haven’t heard that in a while,” Brendon teased, but he hugged him back. Dottie sat at their feet and wagged her tail. They stayed like that for another moment, then Ryan picked Dottie up and they all piled into Brendon’s car and left for Ryan’s place. An hour or so later, Brendon returned alone.

He took Penny and Bogart out for a walk that ended up so long that Bogart was incredibly tired by the time they returned. Penny had given up entirely and had absolutely refused to walk the last bit, leading to Brendon having to carry her. 

He got them their food for the night and went back to his work for a while. When he looked outside again, he saw the last traces of the sunset disappear beyond the horizon and yawned. He really had gotten older, hadn’t he? When _had_ he stopped staying up until sunrise and sleeping well into the afternoon? He shut off his laptop, stacked the papers that were strewn all over the desk into a neat, albeit unorganized, pile and got up to go to bed. It felt strange to be alone, but he pushed the thought away. 

When he glanced at his phone one last time, already in bed, the LED on it blinked at him with a new message. Ryan.

_Hey Bren_

Brendon laughed. _You rang?_ He typed back.

_I did. Rang you up at the register to see how much I’d get if I sold you_

Before he could reply, the next message followed. _They said I’d have to pay THEM to get rid of you_

Brendon made a noise somewhere between a groan and a chuckle. _How much meticulous prep went into this one Ross? That was awful_

The answer came swiftly. _Maybe 3 minutes? You’re not worth more of my precious time, peasant_

Brendon snorted. _Evidently, considering you’re still texting me_

 _Don’t come to erroneous conclusions, fool_ Ryan replied immediately. Brendon grinned.

_Takes one to know one_

For a while, nothing came back and Brendon was just about to put his phone away and go to sleep for good, when another message came.

_You got me, Beebo the fool. Good night!_

Brendon smiled. _Night, Ryro_ he sent back, and finally went to sleep. 

 

The days passed after that. They both got back to the work they’d neglected over the past days and save for a few texts at night, they lived separate lives again that felt like they always had. Their rekindled friendship hung in the back of both of their minds, but it was strangely difficult to figure out how to act on it when they were apart. Together, they had just fallen right back into something they had last had six years ago. But they didn’t know how to be apart and not be on their own. They’d never had to be before, not until they’d fallen apart.

Sometimes, Brendon sent Ryan pictures of Penny and Bo, and sometimes Ryan sent one back of Dottie. Spencer came to visit them both, and Brendon didn’t know how to act around him when he came to his place, until Spencer pulled out two bottles of beer and grinned. It didn’t feel as natural as it had with Ryan, falling back into it, but it didn’t take them long to return to a kind of affectionate bickering. It was easier like that, to get old animosities out of the way while using the cover of a joke to make it clear that there was a will to reconcile on both sides. They talked mostly about Ryan, his memories-loss and recovery, and a little about recent and current projects. Easy, safe topics.

After almost three weeks and four days and nights of no texts, Brendon took it upon himself to start a conversation one late afternoon. 

_Hey. Caught up with most of my stuff. Wanna meet up, walk some dogs?_

It took a couple of minutes for Ryan to reply. _Can’t today, sorry am out. Tight schedule rn ttyl!_

_Alright. Nightly tradition?_

He didn’t receive an answer to that text until the day after that said _Sorry, days are super hectic currently. Rain check on dog walking, but don’t think I won’t cash it in!_

_Me, the rain check… you’re cashing in on everything. You broke, Ross?_

Again, the answer didn’t come until way later. _I want it all and I want it now!_

Brendon sighed. _That amnesia coming back? You seem to have forgotten how to reply in less than half a day_

 _Taking care of some Beebo_ Ryan replied to that yet another long while later. _Business! Taking care of some business. My autocorrect is worse than your stairs_ he corrected himself immediately. Brendon couldn’t help but smile at that. 

And time went on.

 

Several days later, one evening, Penny’s and Bogart’s heads shot up simultaneously and seconds later, the doorbell rang. Brendon frowned. It was getting late, not as late as that first night he’d gotten Ryan’s call, but definitely quite late for spontaneous visitors.

He contemplated just letting whoever it was leave again, but then he sighed and got up. The thought of what might have happened if he hadn’t taken Ryan’s call then made him too uneasy to not at least check who it was. 

He opened the door and found himself face to face with Ryan. “Hey,” he said, somewhat perplexed. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m finally not so busy that I can’t even keep up with my texts anymore,” Ryan said, smiling sheepishly. “So I came to see you first thing.”

Behind him, the sunset was painting everything in its light. It shone around Ryan’s shape like a halo, and for a moment everything was dipped in that golden glow. 

 

_In the middle of summer_  
_All was golden in the sky_

 

Brendon felt goose bumps crawl down his arms for no reason at all. He took a step forward and met Ryan’s eyes – his wide, kind, beautiful eyes. And Ryan stared back, reached out and pulled him in. 

 

_All was golden when the day met the night_

 

When they finally broke away from the hug, the golden hour had passed, and a chilly breeze played with the grass. Penny and Bogart were happily wagging and scurrying about their feet, evidently happy to see Ryan again.

“Come on,” Ryan said, his voice so soft that Brendon didn’t even know how to react to it. “I’ll tell you what I’ve been doing.”

 

Turned out the reason Ryan had been so busy was that he’d gone ahead and reported the attacker who had gotten his brain into its temporary malfunctioning state, since now that he’d gotten rid of his problem he did remember very clearly trying to get back home after a night out and having to break up a fight between two guys for just long enough to get past them and outside. Evidently, one of them hadn’t liked that too well and gone after him. 

When found and presented with the charges of assault and causing potentially lasting damage in the form of amnesia, the guy had begun arguing that, given that there was no proof Ryan wasn’t still suffering its effects, there was no way him identifying him as one of the guys who had been fighting should hold up in the eyes of the law. 

So the whole thing had spiralled into a bunch of back and forth, lawyers got involved and in the end, just before it would have ended up in a full blown court procedure including multiple witnesses and whatnot, the guy’s lawyer finally convinced him that he was much better off just taking the minimum penalty of a year of probation, based on the case treating it as a misdemeanour charge rather than a full blown felony.

Ryan knew that the broken bottle could easily be argued to count as a weapon and thus add aggravating circumstances to the guy’s charges, but the bottle had not been found and he just wanted it all to be over rather than insist on a continuation of the case. 

When Brendon voiced his indignation over that part, Ryan just gave him a tired smile. “I wanted it dealt with, but unless they find the bottle and can match fingerprints, even the report of what injuries I had can’t definitely prove he used it. With enough force and maybe a ring to account for the cut, he might have gotten the same result, even though it would’ve been unlikely. This could’ve gone on forever and I don’t want it to. I just wanted to make sure he didn’t get off without any consequences, but I was already sick of it when we were barely halfway through. I’d rather put my energy towards the future than forever drag one past night with me.”

“You could’ve never remembered! He could’ve cost you all of your memories for good!”

“Yeah. But he didn’t. And I’m not about to tell him that he did a good thing, but he gave you back to me.”

To that, Brendon had no reply. 

Ryan had also checked back in with Doctor Williams, who had voiced her delight at his speedy recovery as sweetly as ever. 

“She says hi,” he said with a grin. “Apparently, her niece is a fan, so she’s been educated about who you are since. If the educational talk included me, she didn’t mention it though.”

“Oh, well,” Brendon said with a chuckle. “Maybe we should drop off a thank you. That woman really made me calm down that night. People like her are what stops me from losing hope in the healthcare system entirely.”

“Girls/ Girls/ Boys is her niece’s favourite,” Ryan said with a mischievous grin. “I don’t think she suspected why I asked though.”

“Oh my God, Ry, you’re an evil genius.”

They made a note to leave a signed copy of the single for Doctor Williams in the near future. 

“So. Now that you’re caught up, am I forgiven for my inadequate texting recently?” asked Ryan and emptied his last bit of Jack and Coke. He sat against the wall, legs stretched out across Brendon’s knees. Brendon was balancing his beer bottle on one of Ryan’s ankles.

Brendon squinted and tilted his head in response to the question. “Yeah, alright.”

“What the hell was that?”

“You do that all the time when you’re trying to think of something. I’ve seen you do it so many times when you were getting your memories back, it’s incredible. You even have different versions for when it’s harder to remember. You squint even more and scrunch your nose, like this,” Brendon demonstrated somewhat accurately the facial expression that signified remembering on Ryan’s part.

“Oh my god, really?”

“Yeah. It’s kinda cute to be honest.”

“Ohhh, you think I’m cute, do you!”

Brendon laughed. “Sometimes I do, Ross. Sometimes I do. You also do that thing when you want to get into bed with me.”

Ryan’s smile turned sheepish almost immediately and Brendon laughed. “Yes, that _exact_ thing!”

“I just like your bed, okay? It’s comfy.”

“I think you just like me.”

“Sometimes I do, Urie. Sometimes I do.”

They grinned at each other. 

“I’ve always liked you,” Ryan said with a shrug and handed Brendon his glass to set it on the table together with his bottle. “Give or take six years. But I don’t think I’ll ever stop.”

“Yeah,” Brendon replied, head laid back on the backrest of the couch and staring at the ceiling. “Give or take six years, I don’t think I’ve ever not liked you, either.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Ryan said, and Brendon knew exactly that he referred to that night a couple of weeks ago. “And no matter what, I never will.”

Brendon looked at him for a long moment. “Hey, Ryan,” he said then, his voice low and never once breaking away from Ryan’s eyes. “Tell me two truths and a lie.”

Ryan’s face flushed ever so slightly. 

“Your dogs’ names are Penny and Bogart…” he pulled his legs back, “…you sing in Fall Out Boy…” he came crawling over to kneel next to him, “…and I’m hopelessly in love with you.”

Brendon felt his breath catch and his heart stutter. 

“You’re a recovered amnesiac, your name is Pete Wentz…” he sat up and pulled Ryan into his lap, “…and I’m so in love with you, too.”

Their lips met with a passion as if there was no tomorrow, and a patience as if hey had all the time in the world. This one kiss held all of the ones before them – euphoric, lazy, desperately heated, and both first spring kisses that they’d shared. And it lasted for what felt like forever, both of them holding on to one another with gentle urgency, never to let go again.

When they came apart again, it was dark. The sun had set, and the moon dimly illuminated the room just enough for them to be able to make out each other’s faces. 

“Come to bed,” Brendon whispered and Ryan kissed him again to say _yes, yes, yes._

When the lights went out this time, they held each other close, and the last words of the night were mere whispers this time.

“Hey, Bren?”

“Yeah?”

“Will it work out this time?”

“We’ll make it work out this time.”

“Promise?”

“Promise.”

It was silent for a while.

“Hey, Ry?” 

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

 

_In these coming years_  
_Many things will change_  
_But the way I feel_  
_Will remain the same_

_Lay us down_  
_We’re in love_  
_Lay us down_  
_We’re in love_


End file.
